Are they worried Prince would take over and fill it all up?

We don't have categories in French charts as far as I know (at least didn't in my days) but I believe in America the R&B category covers all Black music, funk included. Prince would usually chart better there than in the mainstream category.

Because there aren't any funk artists left?

databank said:

We don't have categories in French charts as far as I know (at least didn't in my days) but I believe in America the R&B category covers all Black music, funk included. Prince would usually chart better there than in the mainstream category.

Yes, it is almost as if he is being denied his own music genre. Also why is 'The Cross' is not considered a 'classic rock' song whilst 'Purple Rain' and 'Sometimes It Snows' are? I am only guessing they just use whatever the overall category of a whole album falls into, but this is not great in terms of charts classification. And what makes Parade (which contains many funky tracks) more classic rock than Sign O' The Times (that has many classic rock songs)? These classifications puzzle me...

[Edited 12/20/16 4:44am]

Not enough of it to exist outside of r&b or 'dance/electronic'

All those categories are a mess. There are no clear distinctions. A song may well fit into r'n'b, hip-hop as well as bounce. So I guess the best thing to do is to make a song covering as many genres as possible and thus hitting all the charts!!

Yay! I finally found what Prince's real 'genre' of music is called -> here

NorthC said:

If there was a funk category, George Clinton would be the king. Nobody is as fonky as he is.

I beg to disagree. And God knows I'm a huge George fan and have every possible P-Funk record ever released. But in the end if I had to choose between him, James and Prince, who are the 3 more qualified MF's for the king title, Prince would definitely be my MF. Prince actually took more from James than George when it comes to funk, his grooves are more dynamic like James', while there's something somewhat more chilled out in P-Funk, but P took James' funk to the next level, while incorporating some of George's, too. Of course in the end this is all very subjective.

I really wished Funk had its own cateogory instead of consider to be a pawn off of R&B. Funk itself had subgenres and that includes electro funk, disco funk, jazz funk, British funk etc.

Prince was funky but I never consider him to be a funk artist.

ladygirl99 said:

I really wished Funk had its own cateogory instead of consider to be a pawn off of R&B. Funk itself had subgenres and that includes electro funk, disco funk, jazz funk, British funk etc.

Prince was funky but I never consider him to be a funk artist.

I wish there was no different charts at all: music is music. Genres are such an arbitrary, trivial thing anyway. I've noticed that a lot of people sort out their music on their drive by genre and I've always wondered why would anyone do that? There are so many records that cover many genres, let alone artists with their whole body of work.

I don't have a problem with different genres. Diversity is good. I appreciated the difference of how artists/musicians expressed in styles. Being a Prince fan made me appreciated different styles of music and I am glad he was able to present that through his work.

ladygirl99 said:

I don't have a problem with different genres. Diversity is good. I appreciated the difference of how artists/musicians expressed in styles. Being a Prince fan made me appreciated different styles of music and I am glad he was able to present that through his work.

What I meant is labels do not matter much IMHO.

+ I believe the existence of both an R&B and pop charts in the US is a survivance of segregation, which was still very active in music up until the mid 80's. MTV wouldn't play back artists until MJ and Prince's success forced them to reconsider. We certainly didn't have such a system in France and probably not in most other Western countries either.

databank said:

ladygirl99 said:

I don't have a problem with different genres. Diversity is good. I appreciated the difference of how artists/musicians expressed in styles. Being a Prince fan made me appreciated different styles of music and I am glad he was able to present that through his work.

What I meant is labels do not matter much IMHO.

+ I believe the existence of both an R&B and pop charts in the US is a survivance of segregation, which was still very active in music up until the mid 80's. MTV wouldn't play back artists until MJ and Prince's success forced them to reconsider. We certainly didn't have such a system in France and probably not in most other Western countries either.

Um I am aware of the segregation in US music and it still somewhat alive today. I had been around white and black communities in the heartland of Midwest (Prince and I had so much in common and we both are Midwesterners) all my life (mainly the white ones) and yeah some white people called black people's music jungle and didnt like it while some black people would give you a beatdown if you play other forms of music besides R&B and hip hop. So the audience played the role of how the music industry was marketing to. People blamed too much on the system without also mention about the industry also were catering to customers. Even Eminem said that he sold a lot more records than any other hip hop artist because he was white and even some white fans I had talked to said they hate rap and RB and hip hop music but like Eninem's music. Eninem also admit the consumers played a role for segregation and the industry just market to it.

Yeah I always admit that Europeans are more eclectic about their music taste and why else Prince played over in Europe oftenly. While an average person from the heartland USA like their country and rock. In my city alone, 90 percent of the stations played classic rock, pop, and country becuase the demographics here respond to it and we have only one R&B station and they played some bs top 20 music that makes me yawn. That sucks beccause those demographics are closed-minded when it comes to music but thats how it is.

Yeah we all guilty of labeling. That is human nature. Sometimes its not always bad thing either. Diversity should be the spice of life.